James Swain - Take Down

“Your prescription’s ready,” the pharmacist announced.

He paid for the drugs. The pain pill had taken hold and Mags was acting spacey. Taking her by the arm, he guided her to the front of the store.

“I’m dying for a smoke,” she said.

“You still smoke Kools?”

“You remembered. How sweet.”

He bought a pack and they went outside. The Camaro was parked by the entrance, windows down, the blaring rap music loud enough to stir the dead. Ike and T-Bird occupied the front seat, playing chauffeur because he’d asked them to.

He helped Mags into the backseat. She lived on the east side of town in a town house development. The drive was short. As Ike pulled into the driveway, Billy glanced up and down the street, just to make sure no gaming agents were hanging around.

He walked Mags to the front door. She was fighting to stay awake and struggled to get the key into the front door. She invited him inside, and he heard an urgency in her voice that caught him by surprise. They entered the foyer. The door slammed behind him.

“I want you to stay,” she said.

“I can’t do that.”

“Not even for a little while?”

“No. You need to rest up. You took a real beating tonight.”

“I really want to run with you, Billy. We’ll make a good team.”

He’d been sincere when he’d asked Mags to join his crew. It seemed out of the question now, considering what he knew. Her days as a grifter were over. She needed to find another line of work, go back to school, get a degree in a profession that paid the bills. Anything but this.

“Let’s talk about this in a couple of days,” he said.

“You’re not backing out, are you?”

“Of course not.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and kissed him on the mouth with everything she had. She had smoked a cigarette in the car, and the menthol taste did a wicked number on his head. When their lips parted, he could hardly breathe.

“Why won’t you stay?” she asked. “Don’t I turn you on?”

“I just can’t,” he said, the words unconvincing.

“You never forgot that day in Providence, or me.”

“I’ve got to beat it.”

“Admit it. You want me so bad your pants are about to burst.”

“Not tonight.”

“You’d better not stand me up on Sunday, or I’m going to hunt you down.”

Her eyelids had turned heavy and she could barely stand up. He guided her through the town house to the master bedroom and made her lie down on a bed covered with a collection of teddy bears. She was asleep within moments of her head landing on the pillows.

He found a blanket on the top shelf of the closet and covered her, then stood beside the bed and drank in the sight of her for the very last time. She was the definition of everything he found beautiful in a woman. Never seeing her again was the right thing to do, even if it was going to tear him apart.

“You take care of yourself,” he whispered.

He walked out of the town house and locked the front door behind him. He needed to wash away the memories with a few stiff drinks. Ike and T-Bird were chilling in the driveway, and he offered to buy them dinner. They climbed into the Camaro with Billy riding shotgun. Ike fired up the engine and backed out of the drive.

“What are you gents in the mood for?” he asked.

“You’ve got some explaining to do first,” Ike said.

“About what?”

“That shit at the campsite. Me and T think you’re trying to pull a fast one on us.”

Before Billy could explain, Ike cuffed him in the mouth, and the car took off.

Ike and T-Bird took turns smacking him around inside the car. A slap in the face, a poke in the back of the head, all the usual fun stuff. The beatings were getting old, and he raised his arms protectively to shield his face from a cheap shot.

Finally the beating ended. Being of diminutive stature, he’d taught himself to fight with whatever objects happened to be handy, and the car’s cigarette lighter was just itching to get shoved into Ike’s eye. But he didn’t do it. One day, he’d pay them back in spades, but not today. Today, he needed them to help him rip off Galaxy’s casino, and he repeated his offer to buy them dinner, thinking a few slabs of bleeding red meat might settle them down. He suggested a fancy Brazilian restaurant tucked away on East Flamingo called Fogo de Chão.

“What kinda food do they serve?” Ike asked.

“Bleeding red meat. It’s one of the best steakhouses in town,” he said.

“I can always eat a steak. What do you say, T?”

“If he’s buying, I’m flying,” the bird man said.

Fogo was one of the town’s better meateries, bolstered by a waitstaff willing to do backflips to get your order right. Billy bribed the host into seating them at a table away from the other parties, and a waiter dressed in a gaucho outfit went over the specials before taking their orders. Ike chose the beef ancho, T-Bird the costela de porco , which were fancy names for rib eye and pork ribs, while he ordered a traditional filet mignon. Soon their drinks came.

“You guys must really enjoy beating me up,” he said.

“We don’t appreciate being messed with,” Ike said.

There was real menace in Ike’s voice. Billy proceeded cautiously.

“Messing with you how?”

“What happened at the campsite, where you faked shooting that bitch. You’ve got some kind of side deal going with her, don’t you?”

“Her name’s Mags. She’s a grifter I met back in Providence when I was a kid. I ran into her the other night in the casino and told her to stay away. She came back anyway, and Crunchie busted her. You know the rest. To answer your question, no, I don’t have a side deal going with her. We’re just old acquaintances.”

Ike put his elbows on the table. He had an enormous wingspan, and it was easy to imagine him scooping up defenseless quarterbacks and throwing them savagely to the ground.

“Do I look like I was born last night? Me and T saw what happened. She jumped into the grave when you faked pumping a bullet in her head. It was staged. You guys are a team.”

“We’re not a team. It was spur of the moment,” he said emphatically. “Look, I’m not trying to double-cross you, if that’s what you guys are thinking.”

“Then how’d the bitch know to jump in the grave? Answer me that.”

“I cued her.”

“Say what?”

“I gave her a verbal cue. When you led Mags across the campsite, I turned her around and whispered in her ear. That’s when I told her to jump in the grave.”

“Your mouth touched her ear for a half a fucking second. You’re trying to tell me that’s when it happened? There was no prior conversation?”

“That’s right. I said, ‘Jump in the grave,’ and she played along.”

“That’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“Man’s messing with us,” T-Bird said under his breath.

The conversation had taken a brutal turn and Billy knew that he’d lost their trust. Without trust, there could be no partnership, and the scam would die before it ever got off the ground. He decided to start the conversation over, from the beginning, and bring them back into the fold.

“You guys want to hustle, right?” he asked.

“What kind of question is that? You know we do,” Ike said.

“All right, then hear me out. To hustle you have to be able to gain a person’s trust and get them to play along with you. It isn’t easy, yet hustlers do it all the time. It’s what separates the men from the boys. Want to know what the secret is?”

“Lay it on us.”

“You have to know what a person’s thinking. That’s not as hard as it sounds. I’ll give you an example. I’m standing under the clock tower outside the Providence railroad station hustling fake watches for fifty bucks a pop. The watches resemble expensive Swiss timepieces, only the inner workings are as sophisticated as a rubber band. Suddenly, a sucker comes toward me, holding the fake watch I just sold him. Stupid bastard dropped it on the ground and the back’s popped off and he’s seen it’s junk. So what’s he thinking?”